


progress

by Xephonia



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 08:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14713035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xephonia/pseuds/Xephonia
Summary: Now it's just Vector and Nasch.





	progress

**Author's Note:**

> a glimpse of one of the many ways Ryouga could angst in post-canon ig

It's a rainy sunday afternoon when Durbe packs. 

Well, Mizael packs, too, but Ryouga and Mizael had never been much for conversation, and so his absence is just another sting in Ryouga's heart, but not something that actually causes a change in his everyday life.

Ryouga is in the middle of Durbe's room, feeling useless as he watches bookshelves being emptied into Durbe's meticulously arranged boxes, all labeled by topic.

(Ryouga remembers all the books in the 'how to human' box, because initially most of them had used them as mandatory reading. Even Vector, though he apparently looked for fun new ways to eventually kill someone. Go figure.)

There's a box Ryouga avoids looking at, labeled "past" in Durbe's neat handwriting, and he knows what's inside, or maybe he doesn't.

Durbe looks up from the pile of books. "Do you want to keep the sword?"

"The sword?" Ryouga hadn't been listening.

"The one where we don't know whether it's mine or yours," Durbe elaborates, pushing up his glasses. "I don't mind if you keep it."

(The one they found when they looked for some of their belongings from times long past.)

"You can keep it," Ryouga hears himself saying. "You're the knight, after all."

"Not anymore."

Silence. With a bit of hesitation, Ryouga takes a glimpse at the box after all. Durbe doesn't keep much. Just the one gauntlet of his they found, a frame with a painting of him and his family— the one Nasch never met, the one Ryouga will never meet— and below that, another frame, facedown.

"What's that?" Ryouga keeps speaking without thinking, and he reaches for it, but Durbe shakes his head.

"It's very personal."

Ryouga nods slowly. "Sorry."

"It's alright." Durbe tilts his head the slightest fraction. "What's the matter, Nasch? If you're looking for the clothes you lent me some time ago, I put them in your closet."

"Oh, no, it's just—" Ryouga struggles to find words, but is saved by someone whose presence he usually would not appreciate.

"Nasch's pathetic and he misses you already." Vector walks in, grinning. "Or maybe he's scared I'll kill him now that it's just me and him."

"Shut up. You haven't beaten me once."

"You see, Nasch, there's this thing called a knife I can ram in your throat and twist until—"

"Vector." Durbe interrupts. "Mizael told me to inform you that he has taken all of your hair gel because you replaced his with glue."

"He already told me that earlier today." Vector rolls his eyes. "Miza-chan doesn't get fun. I just wanted to see him with short hair, but he keeps noticing—"

"Nobody wants to get your definition of fun, bastard," Ryouga mutters under his breath.

Living alone with Vector will be hard.

Missing the others will be harder.

~*~

"So you're going, then." Ryouga says the obvious, not having bothered with a jacket or an umbrella, letting the rain mask his emotion.

Behind him, Vector, strangely pensive.

Ryouga doesn't care, instead he looks at Durbe, and Durbe's car packed with boxes, and the fact that Durbe and Mizael will soon be busy furnishing their new apartment two cities over, and the fact that everyone's gone.

Durbe nods. "I am." After a moment of thought, he adds, "I saved myself as an emergency contact in your phone."

"That wasn't necessary."

Durbe blinks. "You're going to live alone with Vector."

"Don't remind me."

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize."

"I'll be going, then." Durbe opens his car's door. "I stored food for the next three months. You should be fine."

And Ryouga wants to say, "Fuck you, no, I won't be", but instead he goes, "Thanks."

Vector yawns. "Get over with it and save us the babying. Nasch's paying for rent and utilities, I wouldn't kill him this early."

In some ways, Ryouga might've rubbed off on Vector. In others, he sadly hasn't.

"Freeloader."

Durbe's expression is unreadable. "We'll be going then."

Mizael gives both of them a nod, then glares at Vector, before looking back at Ryouga. "See you, Nasch."

As they drive off, the rain keeps falling, and Ryouga stares into the distance. He remembers Vector's words from five years ago.

'You're alone, Nasch, all alone.'

And maybe that's true.

Rio skipped a grade and left to study abroad with Kotori, Alit and Gilag decided to go on a world tour and make money by doing show wrestling, and the last two just left to go for university.

And now it's just Ryouga and Vector, and for once Ryouga wants the bastard to talk.

Ryouga has never felt this alone before. "Oi, Vector."

Vector tries to fix is rain-ruined hair, to no avail. "What?"

"You're, what, 18, now?" 

(That, of course, is a dumb question. They're the same age, though Ryouga turns 19 soon.)

There's a pause.

Then.

"Are you really asking me to help you drink to forget? I could stab you, you know." Vector rolls his eyes.

Ryouga shrugs. "I survived a stabbing before."

In his head, that sounded a lot cooler. 

Vector rolls his eyes. "You pay."

"Alright, go back in then."

"Go back in?"

"Did you think I'd invite you to a bar?"

"You seem like the type of person who broods at the bar and slurs on about how Yuuma is too busy to talk to you."

(Which is true. Ryouga has at one point done that, when Yuuma left to go adventuring with his parents.)

"Fuck off."

~*~

So Ryouga takes out the sake Yuuma's parents gave him on his 18th birthday. He remembers Kazuma saying 'no one has to know' and that 'it's fine with adult supervision'.

(He's sure he meant Durbe and Mizael and Kaito who, at the time, were already, well, legal to drink, but well, when has Ryouga ever followed rules?)

"Oi, Nasch. No drinking before toasting."

Ryouga sighs and removes his fingers from his glass. "What the hell do you want to toast on? Another infinity of being stuck with you?"

"How about the lost puppy face you made when Durbe drove away?"

"I'll punch you."

"Oh, I'm so scared." Vector puts up his arms in mock-fear, then he grabs a glass. "To finally being able to walk around the house in underwear?"

Oh, true. Durbe, Merag and Mizael are gone, so no one's complaining about underwear anymore.

Ryouga thinks he can toast to that. "To finally being able to walk around the house in underwear."

Vector waits until Ryouga picks up his glass, and then he crosses their arms. 

Ryouga is aware that it's awkward to do it that way, and also probably objectively wrong, but at this point even a stabbing would be better than thinking about the absence of— he's doing it again.

"Nasch, you suck." Vector drinks, so does Ryouga.

The heat in the back of his throat is nice and buzzing, and it feels warmer than his rain-drenched jacket.

"And you don't?"

"I don't have shark-patterned boxers."

"I don't play Umbral Horrors."

Vector dumps the rest of the contents of his glass on Ryouga's head.

Ryouga returns the gesture and uncrosses their arms. "Bastard."

Vector grins and gets up. "Well, I'll shower!" He runs off.

Ryouga takes a while to process, then. "VECTOR." And he rushes after him, almost slips, catches the back of Vector's stupid water resistent leather jackets and pulls. 

Vector falls over two meters from the bathroom, and he lands on Ryouga. "—Alcohol takes more than two minutes to work. Does that mean you're really this much of a moron?"

"You're the one who didn't just take off his jacket."

"I have fond memories of it."

"Oh, go to hell."

"We've already been there."

"True."

A break. Ryouga sneezes. 

"I just realized," Vector says. "Isn't there a second bathroom?"

Ryouga throws Vector off him. "I like this one better." He smirks.

And he gets up, steps over Vector, and locks the door.

_Maybe this won't be so bad._

From the outside, he hears Vector impersonating him. "'Oh, Yuuma, I could always hear your voice—'"

"Shut up!"

_Who am I kidding, it'll be terrible._


End file.
